I love this idea, Pickles is a solid deck that has been forgotten under the pressure of LRW's tribes. Of course, aggro always does well at the start of any new format, and as T2 has evolved, it's time for lucrative control strategies like this to resurface.

I have to suggest 4 Dreadship Reefs. With plenty of counters, you can build up a storage land enough to just lay and morph a brine all with 1 land and counter backup. A must for any pickles deck.

Don't forget to add Teferi's, as he is a power house. Perhaps even a Teachings or 2 to search out a brine when Teferi is in play.

I like the idea of Manequin to make the lock more robust, but with shreikmaw being awful in this deck, I wouldn't reccommend it. Terror or even Unmake would better fit the spot. With Teachings you could maindeck 1 extirpate to deal with that powerhouse Demigod.

I'm not sure what the exact makeup of the deck should be, but GL with it. Perhaps a red splash (or UR pickles with a black splash) so that dealing with Magus of the Moon will be simplified without having to rely on Slaughter Pact.

Whatever happened to the days of old when you could actually play a control deck

Control cards started coming out with creatures slapped onto them.

For those that don't remember pickles had to race aggro decks technically (why the ug version with wall of roots and chord of calling was good) as its defenses are poor. For aggro to win it had to ignore any attempts to disrupt the combo, giving the pickles deck ample opportunity to set up. Control decks at the time had to play draw go with it, catch was pickles could resolve through it thanks to morph, wall of roots and rune snag. Combo could be stalled long enough for your combo to hit first.

Today control can drop beaters early that pickles cant deal with (fae). The aggro decks still race but have enough fire power to allow some disruption too. Combo barely exists in the present meta.

Every deck atm seems to be aggro or aggro control.Because control cards come with beatsticks on them, such as mulldrifter, control can now race. It's sad.

I think you need to re-evaluate what the differences between the archetypes are. Pickles is an example of a deck that wants to survive as long as possible because the more turns pass, the less time it is before it wins. It is in other words defending the whole game until it stabilize and win.

Now:
Any given deck must attack vs slower decks and defend vs faster decks. Even RDW plays a 5/4 hasted flier for RRRRR, which is at its best when its player hits the second copy, around 1/3 down in the deck. White Weenie plays 6+ removal cards and several 4-6 cc spells. Any viable deck plays 15+ win conditions.

It isn't that control is dead - it is that control can't wait for the win. Once it has stabilized, it needs to go for the kill immediately. And since every deck in the meta has means of defense, that single win condition won't do. Control needs to exhaust the defenses of the aggro decks! Lack of powerful draw and tutors means that Pickles needs 10 other powerful win conditions in addition to the lock combo.

Pickles is an example of a deck that wants to survive as long as possible because the more turns pass, the less time it is before it wins. It is in other words defending the whole game until it stabilize and win.

Well not really, that kind of attitude could make pickles lose because it doesn't take advantage of openings to set up. Pickles was a control-combo deck, and the combo didn't just happen. In fact look at the ug pickles lists and work out how much defense they had, it wasn't that much. Any defense they had was often also effective at getting the combo out, such as remand drawing a card or wall of roots accelerating. The mono blue variants had more defense but it wasn't there to stall the game for ages but to lay the combo and keep it safe over a number of turns. Getting pickles combo in one turn would require like 10 mana, and you didn't want to wait that long.

Vedrfolner wrote:

Control needs to exhaust the defenses of the aggro decks!

If an aggro deck is defending against a control deck it's either lost, or probably not straight aggro. You don't aim to exhaust their defenses, you aim to exhaust/stall their offence before it's too late. Then stabilise or win. For pickes you don't aim to stabilise but win because getting the lock is winning. If i played pickles and had to exhaust all my cards vs aggro to get my lock down safely i would because once i hit lock it didn't matter what i had left.

Vedrfolner wrote:

Lack of powerful draw and tutors means that Pickles needs 10 other powerful win conditions in addition to the lock combo.

I would have to say that those who got down the lock on me, was those who stalled/disrupted/waited for the right opening for the lock to go off safely.

Those who played morph after morph tapping out was generally a walkover.

Those who knew how to play the deck would defend vs the opponent first, before even considering trying the lock. In other words stabilize then win, like I said.

And regarding your comment about aggro decks defending: you presume that there are straight aggro decks in the meta. But there aren't. Every aggro deck have answers to the threats of other decks. Merfolk has counters and Oblivion Ring. Kithkin has Unmake and/or Temporal Isolation/Oblivion Ring. RDW has burn and mid-game finishers like Demigod. An aggro deck is supposed to be the one establishing inevitability against control, but since no deck is the fastest, all of them are able to defend if they must.

This means that what is left in their hand after Pickles have killed/countered all their threats, are answers. That is a problem for a deck running few threats.

Those who played morph after morph tapping out was generally a walkover.

Those who knew how to play the deck would defend vs the opponent first, before even considering trying the lock. In other words stabilize then win, like I said.

I wasn't saying you played morph after morph, but the openings you were waiting for started pretty early if you wanted to get the combo off in time to win. Like i said pickles didn't actually have that much defense if you go back and look at the lists, so you couldn't just sit there defending. You had to be a bit proactive and apply some of your own pressure. Because the lock stopped mana and creatures you didn't need to counter all their threats, just the ones which posed the most long term problems, such as spectral forces, rumbling slums, etc

Vedrfolner wrote:

And regarding your comment about aggro decks defending: you presume that there are straight aggro decks in the meta. But there aren't.

That was kinda my point from the start. The format is all aggro control.

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